http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Perhaps this summer's bloody and tragic fighting season did it; or perhaps it was the disappointment of the election, with its low turnout, accompanying violence, and allegations of fraud. Whatever the reason, the Afghan war is suddenly at the center of political debate in several Western countries. At stake are not merely tactics and methods but a far more fundamental question: Should we still be in Afghanistan at all?

Equally universal (and bipartisan) are the complaints that the war's aims are unclear or unrealistic. A British defense official resigned last week on the grounds that he no longer believed the nation would accept the government's justifications for the war, which have ranged from "fighting terrorists" to controlling heroin exports. Tom Friedman demanded to know "what it will cost, how much time it could take, [and] what U.S. interests make it compelling." Others grumble that we should be focused on the "real" problems, such as Pakistan, or on an "achievable" solution, whatever that may be.

Which is, when you think about it, all rather strange, since the goals of the war have never been in doubt in any European or North American capital. "Winning" means we leave with a minimally acceptable government in place; "losing" means the Taliban takes over and al-Qaida comes backand no one has ever pretended success would be easy. But this is a war that has never been properly explained to most of the populations fighting it. For years it has simply been "the good war," as opposed to the "bad war" in Iraq, and so no one felt the need to argue further.

The results of this silence are most visible in those European countries where the public has thus been conned into believing that their troops aren't really fighting in Afghanistan but, rather, participating in an extensive armed charity operation. Germans, for example, were deeply disturbed to learn that a German commander had called for the NATO airstrike that killed as many as 90 Afghans in Kunduz last week. This news surprised those Germans who thought their troops in Afghanistan were doing reconstruction work. Yet Americans also seem shocked to discover that the Marines were fighting this summer to retake previously safe areas, that the elections were not going smoothly, and that the government of President Hamid Karzai was corrupt. All of that has been clear for some time. But who was talking about it?

Following the lead of one of the region's most clairvoyant experts, Ahmed Rashid, I would argue that the Afghan situation is not yet hopeless. As I wrote on the eve of the election, there is still a definite Afghan majority in the country that wants not only peace but some version of democracy. The central government still has a modicum of legitimacy, though it may not last for long. The plan to increase troops in the near future in order to give the Afghan army time to grow stronger in the long term is neither stupid nor naive, particularly if accompanied by sensible investments in roads and agriculture. But such a plan cannot be carried out without public support, and public support will not be forthcoming unless politicians agitate for it.

This, then, is the moment for Barack Obama to demonstrate that he knows how to persuade. One or two quick trips to Europe and another behind-the-scenes plea for "more troops" aren't going to do it: The European public may still like Obama better than Bush, but they don't yet believe he's any more committed to Afghanistan than his predecessor was. Nor will Americans be convinced by a speech or two, however high-flown the rhetoric and however elegant the turn of phrase.

On both sides of the Atlantic, Obama needs to convince and cajole, to produce plans and evidence, to show he has gathered the best people and the most resources possibleto campaign, in other words, and campaign hard. If the health care debate will determine his domestic fortunes, the outcome in Afghanistan will make or break his foreign policy. He has said many times that he supports the Afghan war in principle. Now we'll see whether he supports it in practice.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Nearly 30 million prisoners passed through the Soviet Union's labor camps in their more than 60 years of operation. This remarkable volume, the first fully documented history of the gulag, describes how, largely under Stalin's watch, a regulated, centralized system of prison labor-unprecedented in scope-gradually arose out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Fueled by waves of capricious arrests, this prison labor came to underpin the Soviet economy. JWR's Applebaum, a former Warsaw correspondent for the Economist and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, draws on newly accessible Soviet archives as well as scores of camp memoirs and interviews with survivors to trace the gulag's origins and expansion Sales help fund JWR.

09/01/09: The Polish Prologue08/20/09: Why Afghans Need a Vote07/29/09: No Burqa For Clinton07/14/09: The Summit of Green Futility07/09/09: Obama Puts Medvedev Ahead of Putin06/30/09: In Morocco, an alternative to Iran06/23/09: An overlooked force in Iran06/16/09: Some good in a bad election06/09/09: Why Is the Right Doing So Well in Europe?06/02/09: Is China Pulling Strings in North Korea?05/26/09: What a Member of Parliament Deserves04/22/09: The Twitter Revolution That Wasn't 04/14/09: Do we really need interactive exhibits to bring Jefferson to life? 04/07/09: No Nukes? No Thanks: Obama's odd obsession with universal nuclear disarmament03/31/09: What's Loud, Unnecessary, and Costs $75 Million?03/23/09: Ctrl-Alt-Diplomacy 03/03/09: European Disunion 02/24/09: Who cares what Hillary Clinton says to China's leaders about human rights?02/17/09: Witless protection02/10/09: Our Ticket Out of Afghanistan 01/27/09:Why some foreigners can't believe Obama won the presidency fair and square 01/20/09: A Flight Test for All of Us01/14/09: Europe's New Cold War01/07/09: Pointless Peace Proposals12/30/08: The magnificent rhetorical legacy of the Founding Fathers12/23/08: Do riots in Athens portend demonstrations in Paris and Cincinnati?12/16/08: Breach of Trust: Bernard Madoff's massive fraud will cripple American capitalism 12/09/08: In praise of charismatic politicians 12/03/08: Moscow's Empire of Dust11/20/08: Getting Past Mythmaking In Georgia11/12/08: In Praise of Political Rock Stars10/03/08: Election Day myths you must resist09/30/08: Not just a metaphor: Lehman Brothers was economic's 9/1109/04/08: Class of '6408/28/08: Did Hillary really help the Barack cause? 08/27/08: Show of Power, Indeed08/19/08: What Is Russia Afraid Of?08/13/08: When China Starved08/11/08: Two of the world's rising powers are strutting their stuff 08/05/08: How Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago changed the world07/29/08:The Hour of Europe Tolls Again … But are European politicians up to the task?07/15/08: Why Does Obama Want To Campaign in Berlin?
07/01/08: Citizen Athletes: How did a guy who can't speak Polish end up scoring Poland's only goal of Euro 2008?06/24/08: Why do we expect presidential candidates to be kind?06/17/08: Pity the Poor Eurocrats06/12/08: Is the World Ready for a Black American President? 05/28/08: The Busiest Generation: America seems to value its children's status and achievements over their happiness 05/20/08: Leave Hitler Out of It: The craze for injecting the Nazis into political debate must end 05/13/08: A Drastic Remedy: The case for intervention in Burma05/07/08: A Warning Shot From Moscow? 04/23/08: Radio to stay tuned to04/17/08: China learns the price of a few weeks of global attention04/01/08: Head scarves are potent political symbols 03/26/08: The Olympics are the perfect place for a protest03/19/08: Could Tibet bring down modern China? 03/12/08: Have political autobiographies made us more susceptible to fake memoirs?03/05/08: Why does Russia bother to hold elections?02/20/08: Kosovo is a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences02/06/08: A Craven Canterbury Tale02/06/08: French prez' whirlwind romance reminds voters of his political recklessness